Speak out against Trump administration’s new plan to deny green cards

Dalila Yeend with her son, Taki Evans, 9, at their home in Troy, N.Y. Yeend, a single mother and domestic violence survivor, can’t receive cash public benefits while she’s applying for a green card to legalize her undocumented immigration status. The federal government has proposed tightening restrictions on which immigrants receiving public benefits are eligible to apply for green cards — expanding the definition to include non-cash benefits like food stamps.

Photo: Will Waldron / Albany Times Union

For immigrant communities in the Bay Area and around the country, the past two years have been a time of extraordinary fear and real danger. Now, the Trump administration wants to make matters even worse.

U.S. immigration law says the government can deny a green card or entry to the country for an immigrant who is considered a “public charge.” Under the Trump administration proposal, the definition of public charge would be expanded to include anyone who uses or is deemed likely to use public benefits, including Medicaid, assistance with food and non-cash housing assistance.

The effect would be to subject millions of immigrants living in this country to the possibility of deportation if they ever used or were deemed likely to use government benefits to help their families meet basic needs. The proposed rule is already sowing fear in immigrant communities, even if they may not be directly affected by such a policy change.

Housing stability is necessary for our communities’ overall health and well-being. We strongly oppose the Trump administration’s proposed changes to the public charge rule.

In the Bay Area, federal housing assistance is a vital support for families dealing with ever-rising rents in one of the priciest real estate markets in the world. Surveys regularly show that an overwhelming majority of our low-income neighbors are spending between 30 and 50 percent of their income on rent, well above the benchmark for housing affordability. Federal housing programs, such as Section 8 vouchers, provide working people and families with support they need.

The administration’s proposed rule change would harm immigrants and diverse communities in many ways.

It would prevent immigrants who use or have used housing and other benefits from gaining green cards or sponsoring family members to join them in the United States.

It would compel many immigrants to give up lifeline assistance that keep their families one step away from homelessness, so they don’t fall under the new “public charge” definition. Presumably this change is intended to increase deportation and family separation for millions of people who have been living legally in this country, many of them for decades.

It will force many of our families, neighbors and co-workers underground.

Our organizations are joining with community and elected leaders around the Bay Area to tell the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to drop this wrong proposal before it causes real harm to people and communities. All of us can make our voices heard. The period for public comment on the new rule closes Monday.

Treating immigrants as an undeserving “other” is morally reprehensible and contrary to the inclusive values that define us as a nation. Immigrants are at the core of our Bay Area communities in every way. Together, we can defeat the Trump administration’s latest affront to dignity, justice and the American dream.

Charise Fong is chief operating officer of East Bay Asian Local Development Corp. She is joined in this view by Elizabeth Orlin, chief operating officer of the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp., and Luis Granados, CEO of Mission Economic Development Agency.